


indifference

by arcadianwriter (noxstories)



Category: DSMP - Fandom, Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF, mcyt
Genre: Angst, Apathy, Canon Compliant, Codependency, Dream In Prison, Dream Smp, Dream Team SMP Angst (Video Blogging RPF), Dream and George are both human in this not gods/demons' that's what makes it painful :'), Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Oneshot, Prison, Self-Destruction, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:21:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29142177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noxstories/pseuds/arcadianwriter
Summary: “I did all of this for you,” Dream hisses, jagged edges and broken voiced.George pulls a face. “No,” he replies simply, “you did it because you could use me as a cover.”[Or,George visits the prison for the first and last time. He doesn't like what he finds.]
Relationships: (not the ccs; just the smp characters!), (romantic if you squint! otherwise:), Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound
Comments: 17
Kudos: 138





	indifference

**Author's Note:**

> welcome to a oneshot i pulled out of myself sometime last night!! i wrote it today, came up with the idea yesterday: it wouldn't let me go, so i wrote it skbcdksd. this is as close to what i'd imagine a canon visit to be like - as i see it, george's character (if he roleplayed RIP) would be very much focused on what is fun and what isn't: the moment dream starts getting unhealthily attached to things, he'd begin to lose some of his passion for dream, until.... well, this fic remains. if george doesn't give us a canon character visit then goddamnit, i will, LMAO!!
> 
> i'm working on a longer dnf fic surrounding the smp, alongside ad infinitum and checkmate (or thereabouts) - the last chapters of a place to call home and speculum should also be out sometime this week, which is pog!! lotsa fun stuff coming up: stay tuned for more :D
> 
> enjoy this little thing!!

“This is a pretty sad sight,” George says musingly, “I never expected to see you in here.”

“George.” Dream sits up sharply and says his name like he’s praying - George wouldn’t be surprised if he has been, with his crumpled kneeling position on the hot obsidian floor. “You came.”

“How could I not?” George raises one eyebrow, watches hope flicker over Dream’s face under the mask, a candle in the wind. “You wanted to see me, didn’t you?”

“I did.” Dream swallows heavily, getting to his feet and wobbling. He’s not been eating, he can tell — his smile is more empty than he remembers it, and George sees that familiar hunger in the other’s face. Hunger for food, hunger for power, for touch, now, for human connection. It had always been endearing to him before: how Dream hungered for things out of his grasp, how he’d tried so hard to get those things. Now, it’s just pitiable. Dream is a god fallen so far from grace, and George is his disillusioned follower. 

“I had to see you,” Dream says, soft, like he’s still human, “I had to— Did Sapnap come?”

George’s face remains mostly expressionless, only the slightest traces of pity in his gaze. “No,” he replies blandly, watching Dream’s smile shatter like glass, “he didn’t want to. I think he’s upset, or something.”

Dream lets out a breathy little sound that might have been a laugh, choked, sad. “Yeah. I think he is.”

And then, picking up on the way George had phrased it —  _ clever, sharp Dream, _ he can’t help but think with mild admiration, mild regret,  _ even at his lowest _ — he frowns uncertainly. 

“...Aren’t you upset, then?”

George ponders this for a moment, twisting his lips into a grimace. “No,” he admits, “not upset.” That’s too strong of an adjective, and George has never really been a fan of lying; not like Dream, who can’t seem to do anything but. “Disappointed, I think. Resigned. I saw it coming.”

And he had. He thinks he had been the first to spot it, all the way back in the L’Manburg war. He, Dream, Sapnap and Punz had been gods back then — uncaring, apathetic, fading from one hobby to another without really caring about what happened. Their summers had never ended; every day had been different, every day had kept George interested and detached at the same time. Dream had been golden in the halcyon days of the past. He’d been a numb haze of content and carelessness: worlds could end, the earth could crumble, people could die, and Dream would have remained as unfazed and as unaffected as ever. 

It had been during the war when George had seen a different side of him. A growing obsession with control, power:  _ oh,  _ he’d thought back then, curious, _ this is fascinating. This is new.  _ Because George hated to be bored, and seeing Dream act so startlingly different had filled him with interest. He’d said nothing, kept it to himself — watched from a distance, as L’Manburg had risen and fallen and with it, Dream. He’d watched his interest in the discs spiral from unhealthy to destructive, watched as Dream ruined himself over how much he cared. 

_ I don’t give a fuck about Spirit, _ Dream had spat that day. 

George had watched that too. 

_ Dream,  _ he’d thought,  _ your problem is you care too much. _

Because here’s what people don’t understand about the two of them; George is the most apathetic person around, and Dream is anything but. And George has tried to pretend like he hasn’t watched Dream slowly lose his grasp on the carefree nonchalance that had made him so attractive to George in the first place, tried to pretend that Dream hasn’t turned so desperate to be apathetic that he’s become obsessive and twisted instead, tried to pretend that Dream still interests him like a pretty flower or warm day at the beach.

But flowers die and summer days end, and when it comes down to it, he can’t lie to himself. And looking at Dream now - seeing emotions flash across what’s visible of his face under his mask too rapidly to keep track of - George thinks he’d rather have slept in than visited.

Dream sees this. He knows he does. He’s always been able to read him far better than most. “George,” he says again, something indecipherable slipping into his voice — not indecipherable, George muses, just too human for him to care about — “Please. Look, look, I— I know I fucked up. But—”

And his voice is filling with anxiety and fear in a way George hates, in a way that it never would have before the discs and Tommy and L’Manburg. 

“—But we can fix this,” he finishes, tentatively, “I can fix everything.”

George doesn’t react to this, or to Dream stepping forwards shakily. He keeps his eyes trained on him, only closing them when Dream’s hands cup his face with all the tenderness of someone cradling something jagged and fragile like glass. In another life, this means something to him, in another universe, he thinks he must treasure this: Dream’s warm hands are the closest George has ever been to feeling something more than comfortably content. A spark, waiting to be ignited. 

But Dream’s hands are burned from trying to ignite it, burned from the lava surrounding his cell, burned from flying too close to the sun. So George closes his eyes, leans into the touch, but feels nothing. The spark dies in his chest. Everything has changed. 

“I don’t think you can, Dream,” he says, and Dream’s breathing hitches, “even if you can, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

A candid smile touches his face, even as Dream pulls away, stricken. 

“This— all of this— has been something I’ve seen coming. I’ve watched the story play out. You were a good villain. I even enjoyed it for a while.”

He remembers, with fondness, Dream demoting him as King. Oh, George had played along, tears filling his gaze and pushing confusion and betrayal into his voice, had leaned into Sapnap’s comforting and encouraged Quackity’s protective rage — but being King had meant nothing to him. It had been fun to join in on the story instead of spectating it, but George is passive. He’s the winter wind, cold and uncaring, floating from place to place and person to person when he gets bored of the last. And for years, Dream had been the summer breeze, light, full of laughter and good memories — and then he’d turned into a tornado, a whirlwind of emotion trying to pretend he wasn’t, and had fallen apart.

George had no time for actors who stumble on stage. The show must go on, must keep performing and entertaining the audience. And he, the audience, is more than a little bored of the villain, the whirlwind,  _ Dream.  _

“George.” There’s pain written deep into Dream’s face when he pulls aside the mask; another expected move, George thinks distantly, Dream is trying to surprise him, trying to show him he has new tricks. “I don’t— This isn’t over. I’m not finished, I have— there are other things I can do. That I’m  _ going  _ to do.”

He laughs, voice cracked, broken. His eyes are wet. 

“I’m not finished yet, George. I’m not boring yet, I promise.”

“You are, Dream,” George says, sighing and stepping back, “you’re finished. And you’ve been boring for a while.”

Maybe if Dream had actually killed Tubbo. Maybe if he’d followed through on the attachment threat, of locking everything everyone cares about up. Maybe if Dream himself really had cut off all attachments. But George can see it written into his body, clear as day — he’s so hopelessly, helplessly attached to things; the server, the thought of power, of peace, of  _ Tommy. _ Dream is so attached to the idea of attachment, and George is bored of seeing it. 

“None of this is interesting anymore. Your part of this story is over, Dream.” George shrugs. “You care too much. You suffer the consequences. I’ve already watched you self-destruct. It’s over. Nobody cares about the villain after they’ve been broken. It’s just not interesting anymore. You were far more fun before all of this.”

_ “George—” _

“You were supposed to remain like me,” George presses, and  _ oh, that’s new _ — a glimmer of agitation wells up inside him, frustration that he’s lost his best friend, his soulmate, to something as trivial as attachment, “like you’d been before.” He pauses, searching for the cause of his annoyance, fishes it out of him. “The first war was interesting. I’ll give you that. I enjoyed Wilbur blowing up Manburg, too. But the rest was… Well. Boring.”

“I did all of this for you,” Dream hisses, jagged edges and broken voiced. 

George tilts his head. “No,” he replies simply, “you did it because you could use me as a cover.”

Because who is Dream trying to kid? His reason for everything is written into every hungry, hungry line of his body: he doesn’t know how the others don’t see it. Dream’s fatal flaw isn’t pride, isn’t independence, isn't even his anger — those are just by-products of a much bigger problem. He just cares too much. And how said is that? 

Caring is destructive. Worse than that, it’s pointless. Caring gets people killed and turns them boring, and George realizes he is painfully bored of Dream. 

“I’m going to go, I think.” George steps back, detangles himself from Dream’s desperation and the tears shining in his eyes. “I promised Bad I’d stop by. He’s overrun with an egg.” He chuckles lightly, like he isn’t seeing Dream crumble in front of him. “I didn’t see that coming. Maybe I’ll check it out.”

“Don’t,” Dream pleads, before cutting himself off and instead asking, “will you come back to visit?”

And George could. He pauses, tilts his head in consideration. He could visit Dream: watch the implosion of a star dying up close. It would be something  _ new _ — Dream would fall apart in front of him, crumble into something entirely different, a new person completely, and George would get a front row seat. 

But Dream has had chances to be interesting. And he’s lost the game. George wants new players. 

“Goodbye, Dream,” he says simply, stepping in the respawn point with nothing more than a passive glance in his direction, even as Dream staggers after him like George has him on puppet strings, “it’s been fun.”

And he respawns outside the cell, leaving Dream on his knees with nothing but a mask and memories in George’s place. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading :] i rlly hope you enjoyed and if you did, feel free to leave a kudos and/or comment!! they really do make my day :D
> 
> have a wonderful day!!


End file.
